When an electronic data processing unit requests Internet Protocol (IP) data, either unicast data directed to the unit, or multicast data, there may also be transmitted to it multicast data which it has not requested. One way this can happen is if the unit was previously joined to one or more multicast groups and then was halted and rebooted. After rebooting, the multicast data continues to be received by the unit even though it does not currently request it. Due to the limited bandwidth of the network line and the continued transmission of the IP multicast stream, the downloading of the requested data is undesirably slowed.
One conventional solution to this problem is to save the group identifiers of the joined multicast streams in non-volatile storage. Then, when the electronic data processing unit reboots, an Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) V2 Leave Group Message can be sent that references the saved group identifiers of the joined multicast streams to cause the transmission of the multicast streams to be stopped. Since most non-volatile storage elements have a limit on the number of times to which they can be written, the preceding conventional solution can disadvantageously lead to the destruction of a non-volatile storage element.
This solution is even more undesirable in an electronic data processing unit that acts as a home gateway for other electronic data processing units in the home. In this case, the first unit will need to be informed by the other units which IP multicast streams they want to receive. The first unit (the “gateway” box) will ask for these IP multicast streams from the multicast router and forward them to the other units. Thus, these multicast streams for the other units in the home will also be present on the line and a record of them also needs to be kept so they can also be stopped. This requires some modification of an existing library of code in order to obtain this information and makes the preceding conventional solution even more difficult.
Accordingly, it would be desirable and highly advantageous to have an improved method and system for optimizing the download speed of requested data to an electronic data processing unit when unrequested multicast data is currently be received by the unit.